One couple’s attempt to rekindle the homesteading spirit

Making and breaking bread

Enough to fuel a morning’s work, enough to keep us going until the next meal. Enough to sop up the velvety yolk and the lingering soup in the bowl.

A symbol of sustenance, provision, and abundance, bread has become an item our family is no longer content to outsource to factories. We make it and bake it at home, where our children can hear the mixer whirring, watch the yeast multiply the dough, and smell the aroma of loaves in the oven. Aside from tasting, well, amazing, homemade bread is also free of preservatives and we have control over the nutrition content.

Which is not to say that we are 100-percent-whole-grain people here on the homestead. We like our favorite oatmeal sandwich bread with lots of old-fashioned oats, a touch of whole-wheat flour, bound together by unbleached white bread flour. That’s right. We make white bread.

And it’s delicious. It keeps us going and connects our family more closely to the business of our own nourishment. Which has us every day thanking God for our daily bread.